SAINT LOUIS – What was billed as a matchup of American Midwest Conference Baseball heavyweights looked like a mismatch early on Friday, until the Missouri Baptist University Spartans' offense awakened, culminating in a two-run walkoff home run and an 11-10 victory over Columbia College (Mo.).
 
At one point in the bottom of the ninth, MBU was down to their final strike. But Lucas Lefebvre fought back to earn a walk, before Cesar Soto stamped the most memorable event thus far of the 2024 season, a two-out, two-run, walk off home run to give the Spartans their first and only lead on the games' final pitch. The blast completed a comeback that was many innings in the making but had them looking at an 8-0 deficit after just three innings.
 
The Cougars came out swinging and were ultra-aggressive at the plate early. Some shaky defense from the Spartans helped too. Columbia scored two runs in the first inning with the benefit of two Spartans errors and two hits. In the second they used four hits, two of them home runs, to put up five more runs to take a 7-0 lead. When the Cougars got a double to start the top of the third, that would spell the end of the day for Spartans starter Teague Robertson.  When reliever Tony Caldwell allowed the inherited runner to score, albeit on an error, the Cougars enjoyed their largest lead of the game, 8-0, after three innings.
 
At that point, a two-pronged approach began to give the Spartans life and change the trajectory of the game. The first was that Caldwell slowed the roll of the Cougar bats, and the second was the awakening of the Spartans offense.
 
It took until the bottom of the fourth inning for MBU to get their first hit of the game, but it was like a bolt of lightning. Alex Adams launched his eighteenth home run of the season, and it turned out to be just the jolt the Spartans needed. Cole Robinson then reached on an error and Jakob Kouneski walked. When the next two batters struck out, it appeared the brief blip would be exactly that. But Lucas Lefebvre drew a walk to load the bases, then Cougars starter Reece Clapp unleashed a wild pitch to score Robinson from third with the second run of the inning. Soto walked to once again load the bases. Blane Besse delivered the biggest blow of the inning with a liner to left that got under the glove of a diving Cayden Nicoletto and went to the wall. The three-RBI double to Besse inched the Spartans back to 8-5. Two more walks loaded the bases again, then Robinson was plunked by a pitch to force home another run. When the dust had settled on the bottom of the fourth inning, MBU had plated six runs on five walks, two hits, an error, and a hit batter.
 
Meanwhile Caldwell was busy throwing up zeroes on the scoreboard for the Cougars, in what would prove to be his best outing of the season. Columbia pushed a run across the seventh and again in the eighth but otherwise the junior from Strafford, Mo. held them in check. He did not factor in the decision, but lasted five innings in relief, with two runs given up on four hits, with a walk and five strikeouts.
 
Trailing 9-6 in the bottom of the seventh, the Spartans' Cameron Roll connected on his first home run of the season, a two-run homer, the get the Spartans within one. When the Cougars got one run in the top of the eighth, Blane Besse matched it with his eight home run of the season to make the score 10-9. The Spartans were threatening for more, but an inning-ending double-play by the Cougars maintained their advantage.
 
That set up the drama of the bottom of the ninth. All of it happening with two outs. Lefebvre earned a full-count walk, then Soto hit his biggest home run of the season as the Spartans walked away with an 11-10 win.
 
Adams was three for three with an RBI and two runs scored. Besse went two for five at the plate with four RBIs and two runs scored.
 
The winning pitcher was Skout Rallo, who came in to the game in relief of Caldwell in the eighth.
 
The series will continue Saturday with a double-header beginning at Noon. Both the Spartans and the Cougars are tied atop the AMC Baseball standings at 15-1. The winner of this series will likely win the AMC regular season title and the top seed in the upcoming AMC Baseball Championship Tournament.